Chapter 5: What Ethan Owed
The text came from a burner phone purchased at a convenience store twelve blocks away.
The store had a camera.
The camera had footage.
By early afternoon, Detective Reyes had a still image printed and placed on Clara's table alongside the transmission log and the shell company document.
The man in the image was not Scott.
He was heavyset, mid-fifties, wearing a gray jacket.
He stood at the register with his back mostly to the camera, but his profile was clear enough.
"Do you recognize him?" Reyes asked.
Clara studied the image.
"No.
I've never seen him."
"His name is Gerald Mack.
He runs a private lending operation out of two addresses in the city.
Not a bank.
Not a licensed lender." Reyes tapped the photo.
"The kind of operation where the interest compounds weekly and the consequences for non-payment are not legal."
Clara sat back.
"Ethan borrowed money from him."
"We believe so.
We found a second set of records in Ethan's business email — a separate account he'd been using for about a year.
The Harborview project went over budget by a significant margin.
Ethan took out a private loan to cover the gap without telling his family's board.
The loan was for two hundred thousand dollars."
The number landed like something physical.
"Two hundred thousand," Clara repeated.
"At the rate Mack charges, it would have nearly doubled in eight months." Reyes folded her hands.
"We think Ethan reached a point where he couldn't pay.
And we think Scott knew about it — because Scott had been quietly siphoning from the company for months, which made the shortfall worse.
Ethan may have confronted Scott about it."
"And Scott needed Ethan gone," Clara said.
"Or at least discredited.
Or—" She stopped.
"Or what?"
"Or scared into silence." Clara looked at the shirt in her mind — the bl00d, the ring, the spreadsheet with her name on it.
"What if Ethan isn't d*ad?
What if the bag was staged?
What if someone wanted Ethan to run, and wanted me blamed so that no one would look too hard for him?"
Reyes was quiet for a moment.
"That's a theory we're actively considering."
"Because if Ethan is hiding—"
"Then someone put him there," Reyes said.
"Either by force or by threat."
Clara's chair scraped back.
She stood up and paced to the counter and back.
"The text said I don't know what Ethan owed.
That's not something Scott would say.
Scott knows exactly what Ethan owed — he helped create the shortfall.
That text came from Mack."
"We agree."
"So Mack is involved.
And Scott is involved.
And Beatrice—" Clara stopped pacing.
"Beatrice placed the device.
She was listening.
She knew what was in that bag before she walked in.
Which means someone told her.
Which means she's connected to whoever put it there."
"Clara." Reyes stood.
"I need you to do something very difficult right now."
"What?"
"I need you to stop reasoning through this out loud in places where you might be heard.
Mack already knows you've been talking to us.
If he thinks you're close to connecting the pieces—"
Clara's eyes went to the window.
To the courtyard.
To Lily.
She didn't finish the sentence.
May you like
She didn't need to.
Reyes was already on her radio.
